..."The enemy was in strength but they’d retreated to their fall back position in the woodland inland of the beach area. This was terrain the French called ‘boquage’ – small fields with earth banks and thick hedgerows ideal for defensive action. Our progress was slow and we took a lot of casualties over the next month before we could get through to Caen. Rations were a problem too; some things never change in the Army. We’d been issued with 48 hour rations before the landing; after that we had to cadge ‘hardy’ biscuits from the tank crews whenever we found them. Of course we would forage for food. Most villages had been abandoned so we would look out for what we could. We took a few casualties that way because the Germans would leave booby traps wherever there was food."
A few weeks after landing John had cause to return to the beachhead and was amazed at the massive
infrastructure which had developed in the aftermath of those early days of the first landings. The Mulberry Harbour was in place and there was a vibrant but organised scene of intense activity with ships, troops, tanks and armoured vehicles everywhere.
John stayed with the same platoon of 15 men for the next few months as progress was made steadily Eastwards. New men came along as replacements when casualties were sent back.
"All the objectives had been given codenames. Everything was wrapped in secrecy and we didn’t know the real place names just in case we were captured and interrogated. Caen was given the codename of ‘Poland’. So if I’d been captured and questioned I could only have revealed that I was on my way to Poland!
I particularly remember going out on a ‘fighting patrol’ one time. The ‘recce’ patrols were just to check out the lie of the land ahead, but a ‘fighting patrol’ was aimed at engaging the enemy for the purposes of gathering information. On this occasion we were sent out to capture a German sentry who’s been seen patrolling a roadway ahead of us. My job was ‘tapeman’ – I had this great big roll of white tape wrapped around a pick-axe handle and I was to roll it out on the ground to mark our way back. You know, at this stage everyone was a bit trigger happy so you didn’t want to be returning to your own lines at a point where you weren’t expected! We formed a secure line as four NCOs went forward to capture this lone sentry. After what seemed like hours they returned empty handed – no sentry had appeared."...
